Not a lot to say. Been online for more years than I'd like to admit, my first messageboard was the original Acmlm's Board, back when it actually was Acmlm's and he was still active. A continued interest in romhacking was sparked there, though nothing productive ever came of it; that last bit is a recurring theme in my life. Other online activities included roleplaying and semicompetitive Tetris Attack; I've drifted more into worldbuilding than RPing, though I still dabble from time to time, and the Tetris Attack only stopped for lack of quality opponents.

Offline, there's not a lot to tell. Miscellaneous minor misdiagnosed mental maladies aside, my life's been pretty simple. Went to elementary school, moved, went to different elementary school, had teachers say I was too smart for them to teach, went to yet another elementary school, finally had a competent teacher, got fucked over by the school system several subsequent times culminating in me saying "fuck this, fuck that, and fuck you" after moving after tenth grade and just getting a GED,

The entire experience has left me very unwilling to trust authority figures in general, but especially any form of school. This has obvious side effects, but a lifetime of neverending bullshit is pretty hard to move past. That said, I'd rather not go into too much detail on the school bullshit.

Currently I live with my grandparents; my grandfather is wheelchair-bound, my grandmother's had two knee replacements, and neither one can drive, so they need the help anyway. They're helping me to save up for a car, we're expecting to be able to get it in June. After that, my job prospects should open up considerably; here in town, all there is is retail, fast food, and nursing homes. I can't do fast food because the heat screws with my breathing, and I can't work in a nursing home because they have a tendency to set off depressive episodes if I spend more than a few minutes in one. So yeah.

I'm very bad at general questions, and prone to rambling, so yeah. Any questions not relating to school, fire away.

Really though, not sure exactly what you're asking. Lived in Virginia my whole life (Virginia Beach area until seven, subsequently in western VA along interstate 81), hated it most of my life. Well, born in California, but six months doesn't count when you can't even remember it.

Mother, grandmother, etc., are from New York originally, grandfather's from Montana, stepfather's family is from this area. Makes one wonder how we all ended up in the same place. Beyond that, there's little I know.

Originally posted by RogueI was more asking about ethnicity, but it's all good.

I'll tell you everything I know about it.

Uh... well... I'm white, and... reportedly, 25% native american (grandfather, biological father's side fo the family, and no I don't know which tribe), never met the guy so I'll have to take my mother's word for it...

That's all!

Tell me about these mental maladies.

Would if I could, but we've never been able to get them properly diagnosed. Every doctor said it was something different, and every medicine I've been put on has either done nothing, created a new problem, or made existing ones worse. So, let's look at symptoms.

I'm prone to random episodes of depression, dipping far closer than I'd like to suicidal stages - contemplation is common, but the urge to actually go ahead with it hasn't come up for a few years. This is far less common than it used to be, thankfully, but every other month or so it flares up again. I am almost completely incapable of starting a conversation with people when I'm not at work, even my own family much of the time. In large groups of people, I lock up unless I can keep walking through it. "Large groups" can sometimes be as small as about ten people. Those are the worst bits, the rest is relatively normal; minor anger issues (under control now; I get angry, but I don't freak out like I used to), occasional inability to sleep (rarer than it used to be, seems tied to depressive episodes), and similar small annoyances.

Lack of other options. I have no means of reliable transportation, limiting my employment options to those within a three mile radius. The only jobs available in said radius are family-owned (and I am most certainly not family), fast food/restaurant (heat screws with my breathing, bad choice), and retail (where I am now).

My coworkers... some of them anyway... aren't that bad. It's middle/upper management and certain customers that I want to fire out of a cannon into a volcano.

So I'm basically stuck until such time as transportation is available. With some luck, this'll happen somewhere around next Summer and I can expand my job hunt.

I'm creative; I've created three different worlds (two of which were entirely my own work), including history, religion, individual towns and cities... not complete, they still need more to fill them, but it's easy enough to make it up as I go.

Despite my typical aversion to conflict, I will stand up for my family and friends. This was recently illustrated in me telling Lisa off, but in the past also included spending a multi-day camping trip shadowing a "friend" of my stepfather's who we're pretty sure was trying to screw my 15 year old cousin (guy was 19. We stopped talking to him after this.)

I've also calmed down a lot in recent years. When I do get angry, it's usually kept internalized until I'm alone or with someone I can vent to, and it takes more than it used to for me to get angry. Took me long enough to get to this point...

Well, first off is Talanris, in random on/off development for... fucking hell, over ten years? Fantasy, fuckload of magic, and periodically figuring out that the newer stuff doesn't always mesh with the old and having to work it out logically with a minimum of retcons. Actually a fun challenge. The local deities come to about 20 or so, a fair bit of the history of Pentonia (one of the countries there) has been determined (start, "current events", random details in between), couple dozen artifacts that I honestly probably couldn't name all at once right now...
Current events include the leader of the current batch of Mystic Swordsmen, seven elite spellswords that serve the Star Dragon, Astrophel, turning against Astrophel, surviving, and aligning the group with the Guardian Dragon Shamira, the only other god capable of standing up to him directly. This is all the consequence of a few of the Dragon's schemes going just haywire enough to fuck everything up. Nirimar is recovering from the chaos sewn by a powerful demon that infiltrated the ruling priesthood, but the Knight of the Rose that struck him down is nowhere to be found. Estorian is shifting into a democracy through the machinations of the not-quite-as-crazy-as-people-think Queen Anna, a full-blooded Kalino demon, and her half-blood daughter Cassandra.
Over to the Eastern Kingdoms, Aritsu has fractured into numerous warlords fighting for power - think Sengoku-era Japan, a major inspiration. The most powerful two are Tsukiko Ise, aided by her brutally efficient strategist and bodyguard Ayumu Ishida, known as the Crimson Dragon (in other words, not a man to fuck with) and mage-lord Hiroshi Akora of the Dread Legion. It's not a good sign when the guy that raises the dead to fight for him is the better option. On the plus side, the war between Carteria and Gerrardyn has stopped... for now... and no one really knows what's going on in Ailong, other than their difficulties with the Black Glove organization...
A variant of the pantheon with only a small portion of the goddesses has been in semi-active development and is used in my writing on Cordilon, with absolutely no evidence one way or the other if they actually exist there.

Then there's the Silver Spiral. Spaaaaaaaace! An undetermined-but-extremely-long time ago, humans sent colony ships to another galaxy. They ended up in this one instead. In the centuries since, the same old politics and wars have returned. Major powers include: the Theralian Empire, in which there is technically a senate, but they go along with the whims of the current Spymaster so as to not be exiled or worse. The emperor himself is a powerless figurehead. The Republic of Zephis, where science is the order of the day. Orine Labs, a small weapons developer that only stays in business because of careful legal manipulation, asinine-but-effective defense setups (like blowing up an uninhabited planet, hollowing out the core, and using a gravity generator to turn the broken fragments of the crust into a nearly-impenetrable shield), and far too much planning and scheming. And really advanced weaponry. Andus IV, a single independent planet and the only good source for Eldecium crystals - a potent fuel source when used carefully, and an obscenely powerful explosive when fractured. You can probably guess why they're still independent. And Kelos, a recently-unified nation spanning the entire Kelos star system, still with heavily feudalized politics. And off to the side, in the Zeta Phoenicis cluster, an alien race watches quietly... It's not the happiest setting, but there's potential for improvement; despite all the scheming and manipulation, the people in charge of Orine Labs mean well; it's largely just by necessity when you're beyond the colonies' reach. The spymaster that seized control of the Theralian Empire is not as violent as one would expect, preferring to make people literally disappear rather than use that as a euphemism for killing them. And for all their fuckups, Zephis is making significant strides in medical technology and quality of life in general.

As for Cordilon... I lost most of my writing from before the reset, and things changed a fair bit since. Wonder if Kazinsal still has the old wiki files...

And to correct something in the last post, *one* of the three settings is my own work in its entirety, that's the Silver Spiral. Had to adjust the count for varying reasons, forgot to adjust both parts of it.

Originally posted by RogueWow, ever thought about writing or perhaps trying to submit ideas to game companies? These are well thought-out and intricate.

I've considered it, but there's not enough of a market for space sims for the Silver Spiral to get anywhere (which is a shame, because I'd love to see that planet core base in action), Talanris would work decently... but I'd want that one to be an open world RPG, and that takes too much work, money, and writing to have a realistic chance of any company being interested. We're looking at the scale of another Elder Scrolls series.

Basically, detail is their downfall; it's too much from one person for a company to take a chance on.

What are a few things that you want to be sure to do before you die?

I'd like to go to Canada. Honestly, there's other countries I'd like to see as well, but realistically I know I'm too nervous to get on a plane or ship to actually go to the others - Japan in particular would be amusing, in a what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you kind of way. So, realistically, I'll take the one I can get to by land.

Beyond that, there's not really much. I don't like setting long-term goals, partially because I'm horrible at focusing on anything, and partially because I'd rather just figure it out as I go. Less disappointment, more flexibility.

I honestly can't think of anything like that. Maybe my mother can be credited for my tolerance of differing religions, lifestyles, and so on, but beyond that, little has really had any impact at all on me.

Which may be for the best. My grandparents are somewhat racist (except when dealing with individuals of said races, it's weird but whatever), the majority of my teachers were apathetic and/or inept... and I haven't really had anyone else in my life for any length of time. I don't talk to people much, and for most of my life I moved every other year.

Perhaps I should credit the Powell family (my grandmother's late sister's family) for teaching me what being a decent person isn't like. I've ranted about those assholes several times - not Chris and Lisa, the other ones.

The experiences I had soured me on any others, to be entirely honest. Maybe it would've been nice to have a normal social life and a girlfriend... or maybe it would've been more bullshit I didn't want to deal with.

I had absolutely no desire to go to any of the dances or other special events, and looking back... I still don't.

What I wish was different isn't about things I could've done - I wish I hadn't had such a shitty time in school to begin with. Childhood sucked and I'm glad it's over, but looking back I still wish it had been better, that I'd had more friends, that I'd had something worth remembering.

Basically, I wanted to start a website for something that might actually get some traffic. For it to be something I could keep up, it'd have to be something I know pretty well, thus, video games. And to make it distinct from the others, it had to have a specific niche - so, aiming at people on a budget. I'm actually working on an article now, a review of Faster Than Light.

Me and Kazinsal are doing most of the work, he does the behind-the-scenes making sure everything still works bit and a few articles, I do most of the articles and proofread all of them. A few others say they'll contribute, we'll see what they end up doing.